


I think now we were never twenty

by cashewdani



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/M, Incest, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:24:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to say it’s mostly because she loves him, in spite of everything, in a way she’s never going to love anyone else, but it’s really because he’s here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I think now we were never twenty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_bennie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_bennie/gifts).



> Title is from [You Can Have It](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-can-have-it/) by Philip Levine, which, there aren't words for how much I feel while reading it.
> 
> Special thanks to littledivinity for telling me it was acceptable as a birthday gift for the lovely miss_bennie.

There’s a lot of reasons it happens. 

She justifies even though there’s always reasons, even for these things that no one talks about. The things everyone pretends aren’t really happening as the evidence piles up and piles up and piles up and yet, somehow become more invisible the harder all of it becomes to ignore.

She wants to say it’s mostly because she loves him, in spite of everything, in a way she’s never going to love anyone else, but it’s really because he’s here. Because it seems like he’s the only person who is never going to leave. 

She’s a failure and he’s got so much potential, but he’s here with her, just she and Lip against the world, and she’s _so tired_. It feels stupid to blame it on exhaustion, but it’s just as stupid to blame it on alcohol, or their fucked up lack of childhoods or any of the long list she’s created every time she tries to pawn off the responsibility.

Fiona didn’t get many tips tonight, the gas bill is due and when Lip comes home he’s going to tell her not to worry about anything, he’ll take care of it, and she’s going to kiss him with her whiskey numb mouth because tonight’s just another night where everything is going to be the same.

 

 

She doesn’t know until later that his first everything was with her. That she taught him about how a woman likes to be kissed and held and fucked the same way she taught him to tie his shoes and write his name. She doesn’t like to think about it because it makes her feel sick, because she should have known. But he was so eager and she was so sadly willing and she knows she said then it was just the once, that first time. It wouldn’t happen again because it was wrong and they were better than this, they weren’t some white trash stereotype. But apparently they are. Because it wasn’t just the once. And she doesn’t even feel all that bad about that any more.

 

 

He’d been spying on her and Denise Carpuccio from the stairs, listening to them talk about how none of the high school boys know what they’re doing, as they smoke the joints Denise’s brother rolled for them. And she doesn’t know why he was on the stairs, or why he suddenly made his presence known to say, “Well, how do girls expect you to kiss them?”, in a way that sounded more inquisitive than offended, but she’s still the most confused as to why she made him come down to where they were on the couch, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and pulled him in until his mouth was against hers.

“That. That is how a girl wants to be kissed,” she declares when she’s finished and Denise has never laughed so loudly in front of her before, but all Fiona can do is look at Lip’s shell shocked face. He runs upstairs and slams his bedroom door, and Fiona takes another hit and tries to pretend she understands anything that’s going on.

 

 

The first time she actually hears Lip tell someone to, “Fuck off”, it’s a guy who was calling her a slut while they walked home from school. Fiona didn’t really care, it was just Zach Lipnicki and no one is ever going to suck that guy’s dick, no matter how big of a slut she might actually be, but Lip ended up with a black eye and a scraped up chin over it anyway.

At home, while she’s making him press a bag of frozen peas to his eye socket, she tells him he’s not supposed to fight battles like this for her. He informs her that he’s his own person and will fight whatever battles he feels are worth fighting.

Nine times out of ten, Fiona can’t help but realize her reputation is involved.

 

 

Lip has never liked any of the guys she brings home. They’re always something that pushes him over the edge. Either they’re dirtbags or they’re boring or they smoke too much or they don’t have good taste in beer or he knows, he just knows they’re going to treat her like shit.

Some of the guys try to ruffle his hair and win him over, like she’s going to think it’s cute, or they ignore him, but regardless, it usually just ends in fists being thrown and bloody noses.

The guys call him a maniac or a motherfucker or a cockblocking piece of shit, and they’re probably right, but Fiona likes that someone stands up for her. Not like Frank’s going to give two fucks.

 

 

It’s been a week and a half since her mother left and six days since anyone has heard from Frank and Fiona’s letting herself feel bad about it for the first time. Liam’s upstairs sleeping and everyone else is at school, and she just has to feel the weight on her, fully, because she can’t pretend it isn’t there any more.

“I’m in charge,” she thinks, right before, “I’m alone,” and that fifth word, it’s like there’s no air left in the kitchen. Like the time she got into a fight with Becca Umbereto in the girl’s locker room and got slammed into one of the benches, the wood hitting her right in the gut. 

That time she didn’t cry, but she repeats it again, “I’m alone,” and doesn’t really feel the need to hold back. She sobs even, loudly, the sound blocking out the hum of the refrigerator, the leaky faucet, and apparently the sound of the door opening, because suddenly Lip’s in the room, bending down in front of her to ask, “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?” all panic and needs. She considers for a second taking a breath and sighing and laughing it all off, but she’s too far in to stop. Put on a smile like everything’s fine like she’s been doing for days.

“We’re fucked, Lip, okay? That’s what’s wrong. We’re fucked.” She pounds her hand down to deal with the guilt that’s she’s feeling for not being better at this, whatever her life is going to be now. “So, no, I’m not okay. I can’t do this, and I’m alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he tells her, quietly, while trying to touch her hair, and she pulls away.

“If I’m too young to handle this, you’re definitely too young to handle this.”

“We’re going to handle it.”

She wants to hate him in this moment, but she’s knows it’s just all the hate she carries around for her parents and herself getting misdirected. “You don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“I do, Fiona, okay? I do. Because we’ve always been okay. No matter what fucked up thing is going on, we all end up okay.”

“This is bigger than all the other times! This is getting put in foster care and losing the house and not seeing one another again. That’s the kind of shit I’m dealing with. And you might think you’re in it with me, but you’re not, Lip, because you’re not fucking supposed to be.”

“Well you’re not either!” He yells and it scares her, the volume of his voice. “You think this is fair? This is shit, our lives are shit, but you’re not alone.” He grabs hold of her skull then, one hand on each side of her head, holding her steady in that locked gaze. “You need to fucking listen to me, right now, you’re not alone!” he screams, “You’re not!”

And then he’s kissing her, angry, and the tension of the moment is only escalating instead of dissipating, and she has no idea why she’s kissing him back, he’s her brother, but it feels so nice to touch another person.

When he bites down, hard, on her lower lip, it’s the same way she’d kissed him in the living room five years ago, when she was young and high and stupid. The tears start up again, thinking about it, how she’s not going to be able to enjoy any of those things in the same way, but he keeps kissing her, and eventually she just shuts off, and somehow that’s better.

 

 

She wakes up in her parents’ bed at 6:30 and it takes her a second to realize it’s not morning. There’s a Lip shaped empty place to her right and the afternoon comes flooding back. The meltdown and the kissing and the way he’d brought her up here and told her she had to rest and she’s strong and he loves her. 

In the kitchen Lip’s pouring juice for Carl and rocking Liam’s bouncer seat with his foot. “How you feeling?” he asks, innocuously, and she says, “Better.” She squeezes his shoulder while taking bread out of the fridge for sandwiches and tries to make it a sisterly gesture instead of what it feels like.

It doesn’t mean anything. It won’t happen again. They don’t need to talk about it.

 

 

Lip’s the one who get her a diploma. He finds the doctor’s note from when she had appendicitis and scans it to change the dates and then basically does all of her assignments that get sent home.

And she tries to get Liam on some sort of schedule and learns how to use a Crock Pot and reads Debbie bedtime stories.

The night of graduation, which she doesn’t attend, Frank finally calls and says he’s somewhere in Ohio, has her bitch of a mother come back yet? When Fiona informs him that she hasn’t, he hangs up, just like that.

She doesn’t tell anyone about it. She smiles while she eats the eggshell filled cake Debbie could have used more help from Ian making, and tells them all that she expects each and every one of them to be finishing high school one day, no excuses.

But that night, she’s sitting on the back steps wondering if it means anything if she didn’t earn it. If she’s never going to get to go to college or put it to use. And Lip finds her there and they share a cigarette and a celebratory six pack. “Thanks for your help with this,” she tells him.

“You could have done it without me.”

Fiona wants to believe it, but can’t. Not with her whole self.

He hits the cap off another beer, and she watches his mouth on the bottle. His throat as he swallows. She wonders if she can kiss him again.

She says, “Dad called,” instead and he nods, waiting for her to continue. “He’s in Ohio.”

“Sucks for Ohio.” She laughs loudly, maybe too loud, and Lip puts his hand on her knee. “I’m proud of you, Fiona.”

“Don’t be,” she says, because she already knows what she has planned once she’s sure everyone’s asleep.

 

 

All the younger kids go to stay with their aunt at the lake in August and she and Lip stay behind because of work. Frank’s been sleeping with some woman he met at the clinic, which, Fiona doesn’t ask questions. 

She and Lip run the AC on high in only her room, living the whole week on her bed, still wearing practically nothing even though it’s freezing. She makes them gin and tonics with lots of ice and they take turns putting aloe on one another’s shoulders.

But it’s platonic, the whole week, and she feels accomplished. Like all the times before this where she kissed her brother were part of a nervous breakdown she’s finally getting over.

Except then it’s the almost dawn of 6 am and she wakes up to Lip’s dick poking her in the hip, this kind of hungry look on his face, and she’s not sane any more, not by a long shot.

 

 

Life goes on, despite the fact that she’s an 18 year old deviant. The kids get back to school clothes and shoes and sharpened pencils, all with the money she’s been squirreling away all summer. She tells them to get whatever they need, smiling, as they walk through Target, doing the calculations in her head and hoping they just don’t have to put something back at the register.

And after V and Kev have them over for a gigantic Labor Day party, she sends them all off to their classrooms, even Liam, who she got into the high school’s early childhood program which is part preparing the future teachers of America and part hopeful birth control.

She works on her feet all day, waitressing and cleaning and hoping to get a telemarketing job, or a gig stuffing envelopes or answering phones even, just so she could sit down every once and awhile, but she seems destined to live off tips instead of regular paychecks.

September becomes October becomes November and she’s too busy to make bad choices in all that time. She makes three Halloween costumes instead, attends four parent teacher conferences and cooks a Thanksgiving dinner. Finds absolutely no time to fuck her younger brother.

 

 

She manages to pull off Christmas. It takes intercepting a $75 bet Frank made at the racetrack and lots of night shifts V is nice enough to pass on to her, but she buys every kid a present they’re actually going to be excited to open. And when Carl and Debbie shake her awake at 6:15 in the morning she doesn’t care that she was up until 3 wrapping.

Lip makes her a cup of coffee so hot, she can’t even drink any of it until Ian has already opened his copy of _Band of Brothers_ and Liam’s decided the bows are all he really needed to be truly happy. When she finally takes a sip, it’s sweet and strong, and she feels really proud for a moment. Like maybe the kids will remember this year for something other than Frank vomiting egg nog over the front steps last night, or that their mother didn’t send anything.

While Debbie is putting all of the hair accessories from her stocking on her new stuffed bear, Lip drops a box in her lap. “I thought we said nothing for me this year.”

“Yeah, you say a lot of things like people are listening.” He sips from his own mug of coffee and she wonders if he really likes the scarf she got for him. He’s wearing it and all, but still, it’s just a scarf. “Open your gift.”

She honestly gasps when she does because inside is a pair of gold earrings. They’re delicate and dangly, made up of all these little segments stuck together, and she can just imagine how they’re going to catch the light a second before she realizes there’s no way she can keep these. “I got you a scarf and you got me these?! You’ve got to return them, they’re too much, whatever they cost.”

“Please, Rebecca Cohen gave them to me for tutoring her in calculus. They were a bat mitzvah gift from her uncle. It was either pawn them or pass them along. Do you like them?”

She says, “You should have pawned them,” while touching them on their little cotton pillow.

“Don’t you dare. Not even if we need groceries.”

“I only got you a scarf,” she says, sad and disappointed.

“You’ve given me a lot more than a scarf.” She slips her hand around his waist, underneath his zip up hoodie, and they watch Carl run over people In his video game.

That night he’ll kiss her under the mistletoe like it’s a joke, but neither of them laugh.

 

 

Lip’s the one who gets sick first, probably from kissing some skank who has no hygiene, and before she knows it, all three of them from the boy’s room are hacking up disgusting yellow shit into the sink in the morning. But, they’re fine. They can take their own Robitussin and blow their noses and when it’s a week out, and everyone else is fine, she finally lets herself relax.

Of course that night, Liam wakes up choking with a fever of 101 and the next morning, Debbie’s complaining that her throat hurts, and she can’t ask Lip to stay home with them after he was already out. The last thing she needs is people asking questions about why he’s missing school.

She figures they just won’t eat meat this month.

Liam cries whenever she puts him down, this whimpery, terrible cry that makes him cough even more, and so she just holds him, all day, while Debbie has them watch this Shirley Temple movie over and over.

She must fall asleep at some point, even with Liam snoring on her chest and the soundtrack of tap dancing in the background, but she wakes up when Lip is lifting the toddler off of her.

“Go take a nap,” he says.

“You’ve got homework.” She reaches up for Liam again, but he’s snuffling into his brother’s shoulder, settling in.

“Study hall first period on Thursdays. Go.”

Fiona contemplates moving to her room, but she’s already so warm and still half asleep. When she wakes up later, Lip’s made everyone PB&Js and thrown a blanket over her. And she doesn’t want to feel grateful instead of guilty, but she really, really does.

 

 

She finds the permission slip while she’s checking Ian’s pockets during laundry. And so she goes upstairs and asks him what it’s doing there, because Ian doesn’t just leave important things like permission slips to go through the wash. “Physics kids are still going to Great Adventure?” she asks, even though she never took physics.

“Yeah, if they want.” He doesn’t look up from the laptop, but she notices that Lip stops so intently reading his textbook.

“And you don’t want to?”

“Not really, it’s not a big deal. I’ve been to Great Adventure.” He has, they all have, and she can remember how much he loved it.

Fiona looks at the cost, $65 for tickets plus the bus, and remembers spending that much on jeans, easy, once upon a time. How now it means so many different things. “You should go. I mean, even to get out of school for the day.”

He sighs. “I like school.”

“I know, which is why you should go on this trip for it.”

Lip jumps in to ask, “What about ROTC? Aren’t you not supposed to miss maneuvers or whatever?”

“We’re exempt if we’re absent. But, really, I don’t feel like going.”

“Is it about the money?” Fiona finally asks, and her voice sounds more shrill than she expected it to. “Because if it’s about the money, you’re not supposed to worry about that. We can get the money.” She looks at Lip when she says that last sentence, because she can that the two of them have talked about this without her.

“I’d rather go to school, seriously, Fiona. It’s okay.” He starts typing again on the computer, and she wants to grab his face and make him look at her so she can tell how he really feels, but she’s not sure what good it would do.

“Fine. Dinner’s in an hour,” she says, trying to slam the door behind her, but Lip sticks his book into the jam, jumping off the bed and following her down the stairs.

“I can’t believe you brought it up,” he hisses at her, trying to avoid letting Debbie hear them from the living room.

“He should go! There’s no reason he can’t!”

“I saw the bank statement, Fiona. And I know you emptied the coffee can last week to pay off Carl’s dentist bill. We don’t have the money.”

He’s right, they’re going to be lucky to make the mortgage payment next week, but it’s not the point. “I can work nights this week. Jim told me one of his regular girls at the diner is going to be out.”

“And days too, Fiona? You can’t do that all week.”

She shoves her finger into his face, angry at him for pointing out what she already knows but doesn’t want to ever admit, that life is never going to be easy. That she’s always going to be putting other people first. “You don’t get to tell me what I can fucking do, got it?” Because that’s the one plus to this situation, she doesn’t have to answer to anyone. “I’m going to get the money.”

And Lip rolls his eyes and grabs his coat and heads out into the sort of evening, while she pours Campbell soup over chicken breasts that are going to spoil if they don’t eat them tonight.

When they all sit down to eat, he’s not back, and she’s part pleased, part pissed and part paranoid about that. She wraps a plate for him and sticks it in the oven, pretending like nothing’s wrong, even though Debbie keeps asking where he is. When he’ll be back.

After 9, when she’s tucked the younger kids in 3 times, and washed the rest of the dishes, he comes back. Slaps three twenties and a ten down on the table in front of where Ian is surfing the internet. Looks at Fiona putting things in the cabinet when he says, “We take care of each other. You’re going.”

Ian sputters a little, and tries again to say he doesn’t want to, but Fiona signs Frank’s name on the form and hands it to him. “He’s right, you’re going.”

Lip gets thanked profusely by his brother but then that night on the couch, Fiona thanks him again. Tells him with his taste still on her tongue that he’s right, they will always take care of each other.

 

 

Fiona doesn’t realize why she’s been uneasy for days, until Frank tells her he’s going out celebrating a very special anniversary. Because, somehow, it’s been a year since their mother disappeared.

And Fiona thinks about all the things she’s achieved in that time and all the things she’s missed out on, and this is her whole life, every day, this comparison, and just for a second it gets a little hard to breathe. She’s done it, held them all together and kept them alive and mostly safe, and it’s weird to try and figure out when it stopped seeming like a chore and just became the way things are.

She goes to the bathroom and looks at her face in the mirror. Tries to figure out if she looks older or more mature or like a mom, and wants to see it there, strangely, some record that her life has been touched by this. That she’s not the girl she was before everything changed.

Lip’s the one who catches her, of course, and asks, nonchalantly, “You looked at a calendar, didn’t you?”

She turns to him, and somehow, it’s looking at him that makes her realize she could have run away from all of this. She could have gotten out. “Do I look different?”

“I don’t know. But, you look like someone who can handle anything.” And she remembers why she didn’t do any of those things. Why she stayed. Why she’s always going to stay.

“Kiss me,” she demands, and it’s daylight and they’re not alone, anyone could walk in just like he did, but she feels empowered with his words, and she needs to be loved, even if it’s in this fucked up, terrible kind of way.

And he does. Hard. He always kisses her hard.

Except for those times he kisses her softly. When they got home after Carl got the stitches in the ER. Her birthday. The night the sky was lit up in illegal fireworks following a win by the Hawks.

Lip breathes heavily against her, clutches at her breast and her hip and all the clothes in the way, telling her he’s so happy she stayed, always is there, and she feels for the first time today like a failure, like she wants so much more than this for him.

 

 

Fiona realizes when Steve is describing the earrings she had on the first time he saw her that they’re the ones Lip gave her, that Christmas she was so proud of. And it’s like a sign she didn’t know she was looking for. She has to make it work with Steve, or Tony, or someone who doesn’t already share her DNA and her life and her memories.

Because he’s got to do the same thing.

She debates talking to him about it, explaining why this is what she has to try, but they didn’t talk to start this, it feels too out of place to talk about it ending.

The times Steve disappoints her though, she can’t help but think how Lip would never do that. Even if she shouldn’t.


End file.
